


Green Sauce

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Northern Lights Farm [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, First Meetings, General Drudgery, Pre-Friendship, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: Routine is the only thing keeping Shane staggering forward. Interruptions threaten what little momentum he has, and there's no interruption worse than a gregarious farmer.Like the other fics in this series, this stands alone (though it follows the same Shane and the same Farmer as the others).





	Green Sauce

Shane’s head throbbed, and the grinding noise that the conveyor belt had started making two hours ago wasn’t helping. It seemed to only be getting louder, though the belt itself churned onward, pushing box after box toward him, relentless.

It hadn’t slowed. It would never slow. So long as there was a truck attached to one end of it, it would never stop. He had been in this room damn nearly daily over the last two years, and never once had he seen the belt shut down. The back room was always filled with the soft whir of its movement. Forging onward.

Despite the pounding in his head, and the vague taste of alcohol at the back of his throat, and the nausea churning in his stomach, he moved around the conveyor belt in practiced motions. He could do this in his sleep, now. The belt did the hard work of reading and sorting for him; all he had to do was replace the bins when they got full, and take whatever product was in them out to the floor to stock.

Someday, Joja would dispense of his manual labor entirely. They would run conveyor belts through the entirety of their stores. Tiny, agile, metal arms would emerge at the appropriate point to drop products onto shelves. No humans would touch anything made by Joja.

That fleeting vision felt like a fever dream—or maybe just an inebriated one. It faded as quickly as his mind's eye had provided it, replaced once again by the ache in his head.

He was just about to take a cart full of Joja-Os—and other variations of cookies, crackers, and cereal, all with _Joja_ somehow worked into the name—when the conveyor belt let out an unexpected, unwieldy _clunk_ and jolted to a stop.

He stared at it, waiting. This had to be just a momentary hitch; it would move again any moment. But seconds passed, more and more of them, and the belt didn't move. It felt as if the entire world had jerked to a halt, stopped rotating; that was how unlikely the conveyor belt’s demise seemed.

Then, from far away, all the way at the loading dock at the other end of the warehouse, a voice shouted, “Hey! We’re going to get behind schedule!”

He considered—strongly—the merits of continuing out to the floor. Letting the next person who walked into the back room deal with the problem. Maybe it would be Sam. Maybe it would be _Morris_. Shane would love to see that greasy face contorted with horror at his precious productivity thwarted.

But if anyone found out he’d just walked away from a problem—well, he doubted he’d get fired, but it wouldn’t look good for him. He couldn’t afford to look bad.

No matter how much his head was killing him.

He cleared the worst of the rasp from his throat and called back, “Something’s wrong with the belt. I’ll take a look.”

He left the cart by the door and went to examine the spot where that last, resounding _clunk_ had originated.

“Hurry up,” the driver urged. “If I’m late to my next stop...”

“Cool it,” Shane muttered, not loud enough to be heard. He thought he could see the problem. Something had gotten caught in the mechanism—judging by the cardboard shreds littering the gears, it was one of those pre-packaged dinners or burritos or something. He peered through the mess and located exactly that: some kind of small, cardboard box, wedged deep.

He began to reach in to try to tug it out, but before his hand could get really deep in the guts of the machine, he pulled it out. As far as he knew, as soon as he loosened it at all, the mechanism would grind back to life—and grind his fingers up in the process.

“You know how to turn this thing off?” Shane called, looking around for an obvious switch.

A face appeared in the back of the truck. It came as a shock, seeing as it was kind of like looking in a mirror: the same ill-fitting uniform, the same uneven five o’clock shadow, the same dark circles under the eyes. The driver’s hair color was hidden under his cap, and Shane knew, logically, that there were obvious differences—the shape of the nose, the set of the eyes—but he saw in the graying stubble exactly what fifteen, twenty more years working for Joja would do to him.

If he had a grave, someone had just walked over it.

“It doesn’t turn off,” the driver said. There was a wildness about his eyes, a frantic desperation to move this along. “They never turn off.”

Shane glanced around again, looking for something that could help. The shelves back here were littered with all kinds of things...aha. There. A battered old toolbox sitting back on one of the shelves, dingy red, forgotten. He opened it up and dug around inside. The faint smell of oil wafted up from within; he fought down a gag, swallowing hard, and came up with a sufficiently sized wrench.

If he jammed it in the gears, he could get the cardboard thing out without getting his hand caught.

“I hope,” he muttered, returning to the mechanism and kneeling down beside it. Raising his voice, he said, “You think this thing can cut through metal?”

“Maybe?” the driver replied. “Seen these things cut through all kinds of stuff. Can’t believe anything made it stop.”

Shane wedged the wrench into the mechanism, reached a hand behind it, and began to pull at the little box. As pieces came free, the gears shifted. Groaned. Tried to move, straining against the wrench that now bound them. He worked at the box, beginning to sweat. Much as he’d love to take a settlement from Joja—it would probably be decent—he also wanted the continued use of his hand. With all fingers intact.

Finally, the box came fully free. There was an anxious instant as Shane pulled it from the bowels of the machine as quickly as he could, while the gears strained against one another, churning toward his vulnerable fingers—and then his hand and the box were both out, and some kind of green sauce was leaking from the pulverized food item all over his hand. The wrench continued to hold the gears in place, but the whole contraption squealed in outrage.

With a quick pull, Shane reclaimed the wrench. It had been dented by the gears.

This whole place was about a hundred time more dangerous than he’d believed.

Returning to the old, quiet whirring, the conveyor belt jolted back to life. Boxes began to move. The driver yelped and scrambled out of the way before he could be mowed down by a stack of six-packs.

On the dirty floor of the warehouse, Shane managed a grim, amused smile. His allotment for the day. His ounce of flesh, taken, somehow, from Joja.

“You’re welcome,” he called, as the driver scrambled back to his seat without so much as a thank you, and got up to toss the green-sauce-leaking-box into the trash. Plenty of spoiled food in there already. More wouldn’t even be noticed.

All this commotion, and Morris hadn’t even come to see what was going on. Probably for the best, but Shane couldn’t help but feel a pang of resentment. If Morris didn’t even care about his precious machine—if he wasn’t even going to _notice_ —then why should Shane?

He glanced at the old, schoolroom-esque clock hanging on the back wall. It didn’t matter, really. It was finally time for him to leave.

He washed the weird green sauce off his hands, stepped into the employee locker room—little more than a bank of decrepit lockers and a cracked tile floor with a bench he didn’t dare sit on—and changed out of the ill-fitting uniform. Hunching into his sweatshirt, he slouched out the back door, all the better to avoid Morris.

The grassy, early-evening scent of the valley hit him, hard enough to ramp up his nausea a little before it faded back again. It was better than that oil smell from the toolbox, at least. Better than the weird green sauce and all the other spoiled food scents that filled the Joja warehouse. He breathed deep, steadying himself, and began the walk to the saloon.

He didn’t think much about it. He’d done enough thinking, these last ten minutes. Filled up the quota for the week. There was no twinge of guilt about going to the saloon instead of going home. Instead of checking in on Jas. Marnie could handle her. She was better at it, anyway, and the vague foul taste of alcohol in his mouth had turned into a thirst instead. There was no resisting that call. Already, the Event—the unstoppable conveyor belt, stopping—had faded to the back of his mind. Soon to be summarily forgotten, he expected. Just like every other minor blip in his relentless routine.

As he pushed open the door to the saloon, however, he encountered yet another blip.

He had lived in Pelican Town, deep in Stardew Valley, for two years. The local populace was small and set in their ways. They didn’t appreciate interruptions to their routines. Oh, sometimes they took to outsiders—if they were friendly, at least. Willing to embroil themselves in the local customs and become a part of the community. If you wanted to go about your business, buy the occasional item from the General Store and keep quiet through the transaction, you got a judgmental glare and a mutter as you made your way out.

But he still knew the names of everyone who came to the saloon on a Tuesday night; he knew where they would sit. If he paid a little more attention, he would probably know what they drank. He doubted they were asking Gus to mix up anything new and exciting. This was a beer-and-ale kind of place, not the sort of establishment where you found cocktails, no matter how many dusty bottles of spirits Gus had up on his shelf.

They were exactly like all the boxes and packages and bins on the conveyor belt. They all had their places, and they went right to them, just as if some cosmic hand—or unfeeling machine—had put them there.

Point being: there was a new addition to the saloon. A green sauce in the machinery.

He’d never seen the woman before. She was sitting at the bar counter, hand curled around a shiny copper mug, and chatting amiably with Gus as if she’d known him her whole life. Gus was nodding and smiling along like he’d known _her_ his whole life. Emily, too, was standing nearby, wiping down a glass and wearing her usual cheery smile as she listened to the newcomer.

Shane had slipped into an alternate timeline, apparently. The conveyor belt stopping had been the divergence.

There was no reason to alter his plans. Gus knew a paying customer when he saw one. Maybe he was having a nice conversation, but conversations didn’t produce money.

Sure enough, Shane slouched up to the bar—at the opposite end from this little conversation—and Gus immediately noticed. “Emily,” he said, but it wasn’t necessary, not really; Emily set down her glass, said goodbye to the newcomer, and stepped over to the other side of the counter, where Shane was waiting.

“What’ll it be?” she said, cheerfully as ever, and exactly what she said every night, without fail. Never mind he’d been drinking the same swill for two years. “Gus got a new stout in—Northern Tundra. Hints of molasses.”

It was nice of her to pretend he was a connoisseur drinker, and not just an alcoholic.

“Just the Stardrop,” he said, like he said every night. It was the cheapest. Well, setting aside what he could get in cans at Joja, at least. But it was more acceptable to do the bulk of his drinking at the saloon—not at home, where Marnie could find all the empty cans, or by the lake, where someone might happen across him. Here, he was in the right place for his activity of choice.

“You got it,” she said, not put off by the way he’d ignored her recommendation in the least, and went to fill up a mug.

This whole conversation had required laser focus—a focus he paid for when a voice beside him said, “Hey,” and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Gus and the new woman had drifted down to his end of the bar. An odd, spicy, citrusy scent drifted up from her mug, and she looked at him with a small smile.

“I don’t think we’ve met yet,” she said. “I’m Lydia. Just moved into the old farm west of town.”

She stuck out her hand—presumably for him to shake. He stared at it. Hadn’t anyone told her yet? Newcomers didn’t talk to him if they wanted to fit into this tiny, insular community. Gus should’ve warned her.

“I don’t know you,” he said. Rudely. As rude as he could make it. “Why are you talking to me?”

He could feel Gus’s glare, scorching the side of his face. _This is your fault_ , he thought, silently. _You didn’t do her the favor, so now I have to_.

Usually, people were either offended or cowed by Shane’s attitude. Everyone in Pelican Town had learned by now that no overtures of friendship—or nosiness, call it what it was—would get him to divulge anything.

But Lydia didn’t huff and turn away, or hunch her shoulders and scamper off; she picked up his hand, gave it two firm shakes, and dropped it. He was so surprised that he didn’t think to pull away until she’d already let go, and then he looked like an idiot snatching his hand out of midair as if he’d been burned. She didn’t once look away from his face; her smile didn’t falter; and her steady hazel eyes seemed like they were trying to bore a hole right through his brain. He found himself unable to look away. It felt, somehow, like she was challenging him.

“Well, you know me now,” she said lightly. “I’m trying to get acquainted with everyone in town, since I’m new.” She raised an eyebrow. “You _do_ live here, right?”

“‘Course he does,” Gus said, depriving Shane of the joy of delivering a truly blistering, awkward silence. “Don’t get any tourists round here this time of the year. This is Shane. Marnie’s nephew. You know Marnie?”

“Of course,” Lydia said, still looking at Shane. “She brought me Archimedes.”

For a moment, even Gus seemed flummoxed by this. Shane allowed the silence to go on. _He_ certainly wasn’t about to ask.

He knew Lydia’s type. Give her an inch, she’d take a mile. She’d already shown no compunctions about forcing a handshake. What next? Regular small talk?

“Archimedes?” Gus ventured, finally.

“He was a stray, poor thing. Marnie thought I could use a dog on the farm. I call him Archie, for short. Only when he’s feeling silly.”

Gus laughed—a sound of relief, if Shane wasn’t mistaken. “Oh. Of course. Your granddad always had a dog too. Sometimes two or three. Said the sheep liked the company.”

“Exactly,” Lydia said, finally breaking the staring contest she was having with Shane to flash a smile at Gus.

As luck would have it, Emily arrived at that moment with Shane’s beer. He passed his money over with relief and turned away, ready to beat a hasty retreat to his usual table by the fire now that Lydia’s attention had been briefly diverted.

There was something unnerving about her eyes. It felt as if he’d been trapped by them, like they were the origin point of some sinister tractor beam. He’d never had trouble walking away from anyone before.

He didn’t want to stay and risk a repeat performance. Definitely not.

“It was nice to meet you,” she said to his back.

He hustled away without responding, though not fast enough to miss Gus’s low comment. “Sorry about that. I should’ve warned you he can be kind of...unfriendly.”

Shane snorted to himself. If she had a reply to this, though, he missed it; he was well away from the bar counter now, close enough to the fireplace that the crackle of flames swallowed low conversations that were half a room away. With disproportionate relief, he took his seat.

He worried—maybe unreasonably, a paranoia born of wanting to be left the fuck alone all the time, no exceptions—that she’d wrap up her conversation with Gus and follow him over here. She seemed like the type. Not cowed or offended by his attitude, but considering it a challenge, something to overcome.

But though he stole covert glances at her over the rim of his mug for the next hour, she didn’t once look his way again. Emily brought over a refill; he drank this one more slowly, letting the rosy warm glow begin to kindle deep in his stomach, fueling his general surliness. By the time Lydia pushed her strange copper mug across the bar and said good night to Gus, he’d amassed an arsenal of scathing comments to send her scurrying away, and she hadn’t given him cause to use a single one.

She crossed the saloon, saying quiet good-nights to the acquaintances she’d made, all in an hour’s time. The smiles and words she received in return were guarded, but intrigued. What a perfect story. Girl moves to grandfather’s farm, is immediately accepted by community. Fucking heartwarming. But not him. She wouldn’t say goodbye to him. He wasn’t part of the community. She didn’t need _his_ approval.

At the door, she glanced over her shoulder. As if she’d known exactly where he was sitting all along, her eyes immediately caught his. No hesitation, no searching. She gave a little smile, just a crook at the corner of her mouth, and waved. Before he could do more than narrow his eyes at her, she was out the door and into the night.

_Just wait_ , he thought, gulping down another swallow of beer. _If you thought **that** was rude, you haven’t seen anything yet._

He had no patience for green sauce in the machinery. No room for nosy new girls in his routine. A few more interactions like that, and she'd be steering clear of him, just like everyone else.


End file.
